Could It Be I'm Falling in Love? (4 page)

‘I always come now. Every other Thursday, between one and three. It’s just you’re normally still in bed.’

‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it!’ Roxy took a deep breath. She’d never had a hangover so bad she’d hallucinated! She blinked hard. But when she opened her eyes he was still there. ‘Jeez, I used to
love
you,’ she blurted. ‘I mean, really
love
you. I had a fight with my best mate on the school bus over who was going to marry you first.’

She looked him up and down and tried to take in the vision of her wildest teenage yearning standing on her doorstep with a bucket. And then a thought struck her:
wasn’t absinthe supposed to be mind-altering?
She should never have done all those shots.

‘Are you seriously telling me
you’re
my window cleaner?’

‘Yep! Have been for the last three years. Thanks for leaving the money in the plant pot, by the way.’

‘I didn’t … I mean …
Woody’s Windows
 …I never put two and two together. I might have to go and sit down – put my head between my knees. You can’t be a window cleaner – you’re—’

‘Woody. But we’ve all got to eat.’

‘Well, come in then.’ Roxy staggered dizzily along the hallway to the kitchen. She motioned wordlessly towards the kettle. Through the double fog of hangover and shock, a clear thought popped into her head … Woody – the man who’d adorned her teenage bedroom walls – was standing in her kitchen … and she hadn’t brushed her teeth! She probably reeked of booze, was no doubt sporting last night’s mascara somewhere next to her nose, and she hadn’t even got a bra on! The one and only time a certified love god knocked on her door, and she had to go and answer it with saggy Wonder Woman pyjamas and tramp’s breath. Liz would be appalled. Liz would’ve made him wait outside until she’d at least powdered, spritzed and gargled; but it was too late now.

‘Cuppa?’ she tried to sound casual and keep her breath short.

‘Got any herbal?’

‘Tea?’

‘What did you think I meant?’

‘I dunno … Something a bit more rock ‘n’ roll?’

‘I’d fall off my ladder!’ Woody laughed.

Roxy forgot about the kettle and gawped. Even after all these years, he was still totally and utterly gorgeous. In fact, he seemed to have done a Gazza Barlow and got even more
gorgeous than before!
How old must he be now?
she wondered.
Thirty-six?
He was certainly more rugged than she remembered – although, thinking about it, he’d barely been out of school when he’d hit the big time. Woody had always been bronzed, but now he had one of those natural all-weather tans you couldn’t get from a bottle. And his body looked good: a real man’s body – strong from doing real work, rather than just working out. He was still blond, but his hair was darker, scruffier – less gelled. Actually, she clocked with surprise, it looked gell
-less
. In fact, there seemed to be a complete lack of any hair product at all. She hastily ran her eyes over his body. He’d lost his signature white vest, but that wasn’t a bad thing. And his chest was still … mmmm; his chest was
good
. Despite the fact that it was January 2
^nd
and probably minus a hundred degrees, he was only wearing an old, fraying sweater, and his legs …
His legs!
 … were in battered cargo shorts. If it had been August and Cornwall, she’d have reckoned he was about to go surfing. But it was January and Lavender Heath, and he was about to shammy her bathroom window.

Woody cleared his throat. Roxy snapped her mouth shut with a clunk.

Luckily, Woody didn’t notice – or pretended not to. There was a pause, and then he filled up the kettle himself, picked a couple of dirty mugs from her washing-up pile and started rinsing them out.

‘What happened?’ Roxy croaked. ‘I mean, how the hell …? I know you dropped out of the public eye, but …’

Woody rubbed his head again.

‘Ahh, you still do that cute thing with your hair!’ she exclaimed fondly. And then she cringed. ‘Bollocks! Did I just say that out loud?’

Woody laughed. It was such a familiar gesture.

‘I do that,’ she said in a rush. ‘Put my foot in it. It’s my thing – my “unique selling point” …’ She petered off, aware she was wittering.

Her mum had always said she’d been cursed with the Squires motormouth. When she’d first started working in telly, people had been enchanted by her bluntness. She wasn’t rude – she just didn’t fanny about. Her producers had lapped it up, and she was hailed as a breath of fresh air. In a stiff, media-trained world, where anyone even fractionally famous made it their mission to talk in ‘PR’ speak (i.e. never actually
say
anything at all), Roxy was the antithesis. She couldn’t shut up! Opinions literally spilled out. If she slipped up live on air, she’d make a joke of it, take a trip down a conversational tangent and lead the programme into edgy new territory. If she was interviewing a hot, male heart-throb, she’d come straight out and tell him he was hot, and then recount a rude dream she’d had about him. It was a cute thing to do – or at least it had been. It was beginning to get a bit embarrassing in real life.

‘Look, do you mind if I just fill up my bucket?’ Woody broke the silence and gestured towards the sink. ‘I’ll come back for the tea in a mo.’

Roxy nodded at the space where he’d been. A few moments later, his ladder appeared at the window. She held her breath
as she watched his calves climb upwards. And then all that was left was his whistling. Roxy breathed out. And then a massive surge of excitement bubbled up inside her.
Woody
was her window cleaner!
Gorgeous, sexy, hottest-pop-star-of-his-generation Woody!
Endorphins obliterated her hangover, and she raced into her bedroom for her make-up.

‘So, how come you’re always in bed when I’m around?’ Woody asked as she handed him a mug of tea. She wished she had biscuits to offer, but she hadn’t bought any for years. Not since before she was famous. She hadn’t eaten a carbohydrate for a decade. Drunk them, yes. But actually put one in her mouth and chewed? No chance. Everyone knew telly added ten pounds.

‘Late nights. Busy. Work,’ she blustered vaguely.

‘What are you presenting these days?’

She tried to distract him with her breasts (the Wonder Woman pyjamas had been jettisoned for a mini and vest. Sod that it was totally freezing,
he
was as hot as hell!).

‘There’s tons of stuff in the can,’ she declared airily. ‘Anyway, I want to know about
you!
You were on top of the world a few years back, and then you just disappeared. And now you’re here … cleaning windows. Hard times, then?’

‘Hard?’ Woody laughed. ‘No! Different. Better, really. The old life was never really me.’

‘But your old life was perfect.
You
were perfect. You were a star!’

‘Don’t get me wrong; I’m not ungrateful. I know I was lucky.

But I was just a boy back then. And, let’s face it, I couldn’t spend the rest of my life doing daft photo shoots and miming on
Top Of The Pops.’

‘You couldn’t?’

‘Besides, I was sick of either being locked away in a recording studio, or stuck in an airport lounge. And if I’d had to wear one more white vest … No, this is much better.’

‘What, being stuck up a ladder for a living?’

‘Yeah, why not? I’m my own boss. I keep my own hours; I work outside in beautiful countryside. What’s not to like?’

‘What’s
to
like,’ Roxy mumbled. Woody might be sex on a stick, with eyes so blue she wanted to drag him into her bedroom and ravish him until he was concussed, but he obviously needed a pep talk. And if there was one thing she was totally ace at, it was motivational speaking. She did it to herself every day. Nobody knew the ‘fame costs’ speech better than she did. If you wanted to be famous, you had to work at it – hard; every minute of every single day.

‘Woody,’ she commanded with as much authority as her hangover would grant her, ‘you’re only a couple of years older than me. You’re in your prime – not ready to fade into oblivion like some
nobody!
You need to put down that sponge and get your pop-star arse back out there. Forget the windows – make another record! People loved you; they’ll be queueing round the block to buy it! Get back on the party circuit, do a few chat shows, speak to the tabloids. Ditch the tatty-sweater-and-wet-shorts look and treat yourself to a new stylist. And maybe a bit of Botox while you’re at it. Don’t get me wrong; you look great,
but everyone’s got hi-def tellies these days, so why risk it? And you need to give your agent a serious rollicking; shove a rocket up his arse! I can’t believe he’s left you up a ladder all these years. He’s been criminally negligent, if you ask me …’

Suddenly she noticed Woody smiling.

‘You
have
still got an agent, haven’t you?’ she asked in alarm. ‘You’ll never get back without one! I’ve got a copy of
Spotlight
if you want to look a few up.’ She rummaged in the pile of celebrity mags on her table. She always kept her agents directory close to hand. She read it like other people read the Bible.

‘Thanks.’ Woody held up his hands. ‘But I’m happy as I am. I don’t want to go back.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t want to go back? Everyone wants to be famous!’

‘My life’s good. My
simple
life’s good. I don’t want to go to clubs and premieres and parties. Been there, done that – and only just lived to tell the tale. Besides, I’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn for my round.’

There was a long pause. Roxy looked incredulous. And then she pursed her lips, blew a raspberry and burst into laughter.

‘OK, I get it! This is a wind-up, right? Come on – where are the secret cameras? I can’t believe I fell for it! My teenage pinup knocks on my door and pretends to be my window cleaner! I’ll kill whoever it was who set me up. Who’re you filming this for? E4? MTV? You could’ve warned me; I wasn’t even wearing any bronzer!’

Woody looked at her strangely. There was a long pause. And then he stretched across the kitchen table, looped a pen out
of the pile of magazines and wrote something on the back of
OK!

‘Roxy, are you busy tonight?’

‘Eh?’

‘I’d like you to come over to my place.’

Roxy looked around her kitchen. No secret cameramen had emerged from her cupboards; no producers had bounded down her hall. She looked down at the magazine that Woody had slid towards her. She tried not to gasp. He’d written an address-just a few roads away, in Lavender Heath. She knew the road; it was a residential street. And, unless she was very much mistaken, Woody had just asked her out!

‘There are some people I’d like you to meet,’ she vaguely heard him say. But his words were drowned out by her internal screech. ROCKING HELL! WOODY HAD JUST ASKED HER OUT!
And
he’d given her his address. If only the girls on the school bus could see her now.

Woody was talking, but she was too hyped to listen.

‘You’ll need to be open-minded.’

She nodded dumbly, wondering which of her killer outfits weren’t bundled into balls on her bedroom floor. What time did the dry cleaner’s close? Or what about her dress from last night? As long as she hadn’t dribbled mojito on it, it might just be OK. And there was no way he’d resist her in that!

She suddenly noticed Woody was smiling at her oddly. It was the same kind of smile her mum did when she asked if Roxy was eating enough. But she didn’t pay much notice. She was too busy wondering how long Woody had known where
she lived. He must have recognised her from her TV shows; or maybe he’d been a fan of her lads’ mag shoots. Whatever, he must have waited and waited for his big chance, when he finally found her awake.

She giggled out loud. Woody looked surprised and stopped talking. She nodded, as though agreeing to what he’d just said. Woody wanted her, she realised with glee. The gorgeous pop star she’d fancied when she was fifteen! Woody … and her; they were going to be an item! More than an item: a power couple. Together they’d be the pop star and the TV presenter; the UK’s Brangelina; the new generation Posh ‘n’ Becks. And with only six weeks ‘til Valentine’s, it was perfect! That’d give them a couple of weeks to get to know each other before inviting
OK!
magazine to share the story of how they’d fallen in love. And of course, all the daytime shows would want them. And the sex … the sex would be AWESOME: eye-popping, lash-curling stuff! After all, the papers hadn’t called him ‘The Woodeniser’ for nothing. As soon as he’d gone, she was going to email all her contacts – tip off the producers and talent bookers that she was about to become VERY HOT STUFF. She suddenly wondered if she had any of Woody’s old hits on her iPod. She should download some, re-learn the lyrics, so she could drop them into the convo later. Yeah, that’d be cute.

‘See you later, then; eight thirty,’ he was heading for the door.

‘Eight thirty,’ she echoed excitedly, having heard precisely nothing else of what he’d just said. ‘Your place,’ she added
with a wink. She’d already decided she was going to give out. Chances like this didn’t land in your lap often, and besides – it wasn’t like she was being easy –
she’d fancied him for almost twenty years!
She wondered if the local beautician’s could fit her in for an emergency Hollywood.

Woody paused on the doorstep and looked at her strangely.

Roxy beamed manically, hoping she’d not said any of that stuff out loud. A moment passed. And then he gave an odd little smile, and left. Almost sick with excitement, she closed the door behind him.

To:
Roxy Squires

From:
I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here
production office

Dear Ms Squires,

Thank you for your recent correspondence.

Please note that we only consider requests to be an
I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here
contestant via registered talent agents.

For a full list of agents, please consult the
Spotlight
directory.